§ 8 Experiments on Fish-tail and Bat’s-wing Flames
We now pass on to a thin sheet of flame, issuing from a common fish-tail burner, Fig. 121. You might sing to this flame, varying the pitch of your voice; no shiver of the flame would be visible. You might employ pitch-pipes, tuning-forks, bells, and trumpets, with a like absence of all effect. A barely perceptible motion of the interior of the flame may be noticed when a shrill whistle is blown close to it. But by turning the cock more fully on, the flame is brought to the verge of flaring. And now, when the whistle is blown, the flame thrusts suddenly out seven quivering tongues, Fig. 122. The moment the sound ceases, the tongues disappear, and the flame becomes quiescent.
Passing from a fish-tail to a bat’s-wing burner, we obtain a broad, steady flame, Fig. 123. It is quite insensible to the loudest sound which would be tolerable here. The flame is fed from a small gas-holder.53 Increasing gradually the pressure, a slight flutter of the edge of the flame at length answers to the sound of the whistle. Turning on the gas until the flame is on the point of roaring, and blowing the whistle, it roars, and suddenly assumes the form shown in Fig. 124.
When a distant anvil is struck with a hammer, the flame instantly responds by thrusting forth its tongues.
An essential condition to entire success in these experiments disclosed itself in the following manner: I was operating on two fish-tail flames, one of which jumped to a whistle while the other did not. The gas of the non-sensitive flame was turned off, additional pressure being thereby thrown upon the other flame. It flared, and its cock was turned so as to lower the flame; but it now proved non-sensitive, however close it might be brought to the point of flaring. The narrow orifice of the half-turned cock interfered with the action of the sound. When the gas was turned fully on, the flame being lowered by opening the cock of the other burner, it became again sensitive. Up to this time a great number of burners had been tried, but with many of them the action was nil. Acting, however, upon the hint conveyed by this observation, the cocks which fed the flames were more widely opened, and our most refractory burners thus rendered sensitive.
In this way the observation of Dr. Le Conte is easily and strikingly illustrated; in our subsequent, and far more delicate, experiments the precaution just referred to is still more essential.